Something to encourage your heart Pt 2

5. As of 2016, 88% of all the children in the world today have been vaccinated.
6. The point above also means almost all human beings alive today have some access to basic healthcare.
7. HIV infections are down to less than half of what there were 10 years ago. From 549 per million in 1996 to 241 in 2016.
8. As far as literacy goes, the share of adults who have the basic skills to read and write is up from 10% (1800) to 86% (2016).
9. Worldwide, 90% of girls of primary school age are now enrolled in school, whereas in 1979 only 65% were.

[Source: “Factfulness, Why things are better than you think” by Hans Rosling]

India politely declines relief assistance for flooded Kerala

In late July 2018, the worst floods in a century impacted the southern Indian state of Kerala a result of unusually high rainfall during the monsoon season. Over 373 people died within a fortnight, and hundreds of thousands evacuated.

India on Wednesday rejected an offer by the United Arab Emirates government to give $100 million to the disaster relief fund for flood-stricken Kerala state. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that foreign money could only be donated through Indian-origin individuals or foundations.

Politely declining the offer, India had expressed appreciation for the countries who were willing to help Kerala. Among other countries who have offered to assist India with relief efforts in Kerala are Maldives, Thailand and Qatar.

Today, Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan said that his country stands with people of flood-ravaged Kerala who have suffered a devastating spell of flood and offered to extend humanitarian aid to the southern Indian state.

Trying to shed its long-time image as a poverty-wrecked nation, India has refused to accept aid from foreign governments since a 2004 tsunami, when New Delhi told potential government donors that India would contact them if it needed financial aid.

[The Times of India]

Women and children most vulnerable in African crises

The East and Southern Africa region is home to humanitarian crises that are having a devastating effect on the health, dignity and rights of women and girls.

Over a decade, an estimated 7.4 million people have been displaced by intercommunal violence and protracted armed conflicts. Of the 4.5 million of the total 7.4 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), up to 80 per cent of whom have been on the move for more than 10 years and are suffering from extreme poverty and insecurity. The majority of these are women, young people and children.

In the Horn of Africa region, more than 13 million people are affected, 9.5 million of whom are IDPs and nearly 4 million are refugees, mostly from South Sudan.

More than 44 million people in East and Southern Africa are presently food insecure, nearly 36 million of them severely so.

In all these humanitarian crises, women and girls are especially vulnerable to gender-based violence and exploitation. Their day-to-day activities – such as looking for food and water for the family, collecting firewood, attending the market, or engaging in other household duties – more often than not further expose them to abduction, exploitation, and abuse.

And humanitarian crises dramatically elevate risks to the lives of pregnant women and newborn babies.

[UN Population Fund]

Trump administration to attempt to kill billions in foreign aid

The White House budget office believes it has found a way to cancel billions of dollars of foreign aid even if it is never approved by Congress, according to a Republican aide familiar with the plan.

Using an obscure budget rule, administration officials are planning to freeze billions of dollars in the State Department’s international assistance budget — just long enough so the funds will expire. The current plan involves about $3 billion, though officials are said to have discussed as much as $5 billion.

The White House plans to submit the package of so-called rescissions in the coming days, which triggers an automatic freeze on those funds for 45 days. The cuts would largely come from the U.S. funding for the United Nations, according to the aide.

With exactly 45 days left in fiscal 2018, the State Department wouldn’t be able to use those funds even if Congress rejects the request because those dollars will have expired by Oct. 1.

It would be the second time the Trump administration has submitted this kind of presidential rescissions package. The White House’s last request, which would have reclaimed $15 billion across multiple agencies, narrowly passed the House and was rejected by the GOP-led Senate. It was the first time a president had used the rescissions process since 2000.

[Washington Post]

A message for World Humanitarian Day August 19

August 19 was designated as World Humanitarian Day by the UN General Assembly in 2008 to mark the bombing that targeted the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq on Aug. 19, 2003.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has launched a petition with world leaders for the protection of civilians and aid workers in armed conflict. “Each year on World Humanitarian Day, we stand in solidarity with the millions of people affected by conflict and the aid and health workers who risk their lives to assist them. We take the day as an opportunity to remind the world of our collective responsibility to bring that suffering to an end,” said OCHA in a message.

Today, in conflict zones all over the world, civilians are routinely killed or maimed, towns and cities are damaged and destroyed, in targeted or indiscriminate attacks. Three out of four victims of explosive weapons in 2017 were civilians.

People are cut off from food, water and life-saving assistance, in some cases, starved as a deliberate tactic of war, it said.

Humanitarian and medical personnel are killed, injured, kidnapped or otherwise prevented from reaching people in need. They are exposed to legal obstacles and even forms of punishment for impartially providing aid and care to people who need it to survive, said the message.

The petition was launched prior to next month’s gathering of world leaders in New York for the annual UN General Assembly General Debate.

[Xinhua]

Aid workers in danger globally

Last year, a total of 158 major attacks on humanitarian operations across 22 countries affected 313 aid workers globally, resulting in deaths, injuries or kidnappings.

While the number of attacks reduced in comparison to 2016 figures, there was an uptick in the number of victims, data from Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) show. Of the 313 victims of attacks, 139 were killed—the second highest recorded annual death toll ever.

South Sudan, which has been a center of aid worker attacks, accounted for more than quarter of global incidents. AWSD says the kidnappings “suggests a troubling trend of armed groups using this tactic to assert control over aid operations.”

The lack of security for aid workers has a devastating cyclic effect on citizens in conflict zones. Unsure of their workers’ safety, humanitarian organizations often suspend operations in areas where insecurity is severe. And, as a result, citizens in those areas in dire need of critical aid items, including food and medicine, remain in want. As heightened conflicts often limit access of international aid organizations and their workers, a majority of killed aid workers in 2017 were with national and local humanitarian groups and non-profits.

[Quartz]